| Archive for westhoughtoncanoeclub.myfreeforum.org Westhoughton Canoe Club |
| CarlS |
Washburn 24th August 2008Steve, Andy, Graham, Chris and myself took advantage of one of the regular Washburn releases and had a good day's paddle. The river was fast and bouncy from the start and I personally found the early eddys difficult to make, in fact I would go as far to say that by the time I had spotted one it was too late. We arrived at the first 'big' drop and I went down it, when I hit the hole my boat went vertical and despite my best efforts I capsized. The last time we ran this river the same thing happened and I tried to roll, going over the second drop upside down smashing my face against a rock in the process. The result of this was a broken nose, loose teeth and one helmet written off! As a consequence I decided to bail out this time and made the bank after a fairly aggressive swim. Boat and paddled vanished downstream (a big thank you to Andy for their rescue), by this time a major drama had developed with a rather large yellow kayak (sans paddler) pinned vertically. I will let others describe this story in full.We walked back to the carpark and did a full run of the river with no further drama. The Washburn had been modifed since our last visit and there are now a number of new weirs, making for great fun. I continued to miss 'eddys' and this is something to work on in the future. We did a final run down to the big weir and then got out. It is a pity that it takes 90 minutes to reach the Washburn as this would be an ideal training ground. This is a really good river and in general it is fairly straight forward. I think that the rock which tried to redesign my face has gone now and the worst thing that can happen is a fairly long swm. I would recommend this river to any member with experience or novices who have done the white water safety course. Carl |
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| Steve T |
Agreed, although I have given away a bit of a clue here: http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40091 (It's only right to say thanks) It was a cracking day, once the rain had cleared. The new river features have made this a bit more interesting and the breakouts are there if you look hard (OK they might only fit one boat!) Once the guilty parties have explained what actually happened then I'll do a bit of a write-up on this one. Steve |
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| GrahamS |
OK, hands up - it was my boat which ended up vertical after the second drop (surprise, surprise!).
I'd already had a couple of swims on the the way down (wasn't getting away with things this time!!), due to the speed of the water. I'd noticed Steve in an eddy above the weir, and aimed for the same place. However, the water caught my edge out and flipped the boat. With more than a fair bit of effort, I managed to swim to the eddy. As I got out (beleiving that I was the only one to get wet!), I noticed the H3 was vertical, trapped between two rocks at the bottom of the second drop. After a great deal of effort and help from other kayakers, the H3 was released and sent down river, along with the offending rock and the two rescuers who were stood on it! Thankfully all were rescued safely (apart from the rock). After this, I decided to call it a day, due to exhaustion and being out of my depth in more ways than one! Great day, thanks to all, especially Chris who was instrumental in getting out the H3. |
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| Steve T |
I don't think you can be blamed for what your boat does when you're not in it. However, Chris did spend the rest of the afternoon explaining that it wasn't his boat which was pinned:
It did take a bit of effort - no amount of pushing or pulling was getting it loose from its position between two rocks. There was a point when I thought we'd have to wait for the water to be switched off at 5:00. In the end it took a 2:1 pulley rigged across the river, and we didn't so much pull the boat out, the boat actually levered the offending rock out of the way. Unfortunately Chris and the other guy (see the UKRGB thread) were stood on that rock, and both ended up swimming. All's well that ends well, it was a good job that no-one was in the boat at the time. And full marks for the Olympic standard agressive swimming into the breakout next to me just above the big drop, there was some amount of adrenaline flowing then! Steve |
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| Steve T |
This trip has also been written up, here:
http://www.freewebs.com/westhough...club/Washburn%5Freport%5F2008.pdf Unfortunately THAT picture has failed to appear when I converted it to pdf, so I will fix that and repost it. Again there is no link from the website yet, I am due a bit of an update. I also have some video of Andy playing on the weir which Graham did, this should be on YouTube tonight. Steve |
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| Steve T |
Graham's video of Andy here:
Steve |
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| Steve T |
Fixed now Steve |
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| Steve T |
I've dragged this thread back to the top because I've finally figured out how to get the video which Graham did with Chris's camcorder onto YouTube.
This shows some of the falls in the second half of the river after the main weir, most of which weren't there until this year's modifications. Don't forget the rest of the club's YouTube videos on the KeawyedsinKayaks and Cowheaders channels: http://uk.youtube.com/user/KeawyedsinKayaks http://uk.youtube.com/user/Cowheaders Steve |
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